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Halil
Halil is the name of many characters of religious and historical importance on Ethos. Devil Figure In the Codex Baruc, Halil is Baruc's youngest child. Unable to create life like His siblings Elohim and Ogdilla, He can only corrupt the living. He was directly responsible for conflict that rendered the Eldest extinct and the Firstborn very nearly so. Unwilling to destroy His child, Baruc entombed Halil deep underground and charged humanity with undoing His damage; He would return when their mission was complete. But Halil's prison was flawed; when He yelled at the top of His lungs, He could make human hear Him as a faint whisper. Through these whispers, Halil has continued all manner of suffering and strife, preventing Baruc's return. Misunderstood Demiurge The Codex Apocrypha paints a different picture of Halil. It claims that Halil was created by Baruc, but it was Halil who created Ethos. The war between the Eldest and Firstborn was the result of His siblings leaving Their creations ill-equipped to deal with the world and each other while Halil was away, retrieving Baruc. They fled before He returned, was mortified with what greeted His return. Baruc was disgusted that Halil would wish to show him a world torn by war. Ignoring Halil's pleas, He entombed Halil beneath the earth. Halil is just barely able to whisper to the surface, guiding humanity and trying to save them from their baser instincts and to avert the folly of the Eldest and Firstborn. Archlich In 1699, a discovery of what was believed to be Halil's tomb was made. The expedition uncovered a creature claiming itself to be Halil. Also answering to the names of Archlich, Demiurge in Stone, and Living Fossil, the occupant of the tomb was an Eldest Lich, held so long that it had fossilized. This ancient being sought to conquer humanity. It claimed that Baruc did not exist; the Eldest had evolved naturally from Ethos' native species. Elohim was an ancient Eldest king, Ogdilla a brilliant Eldest wizard who created the Firstborn. It claimed that their conflict came from Liches much like Halil himself--the Firstborn claimed Liches were too great a threat, and the Eldest must disavow magic. The Eldest resisted, so the Firstborn hunted them to extinction. The only survivors were Halil and a handful of other Liches, their locations forgotten. Before their fall, the Eldest created humans as a weapon against the Firstborn, but it was a weapon that came too late. After the Eldest destroyed themselves opening the Stitch in Time, effectively ending Firstborn civilization, humans inherited Ethos. The Archlich watched distantly all this time, able only to whisper to individual humans from within his prison. His attempt to deify himself was set back when the church administration voted for the villainous portrayal of him for the Codex Baruc. The War of the Demiurge was fought against Halil, a wizard who wasn't vulnerable to orichalcum and whose true name could not be spoken by human mouths. He was ultimately destroyed by trapping him within the Tain and carrying it into the Stitch in Time.